The Zhuangzi is regarded as one of the greatest literary works in all of Chinese history, and has been called “the most important pre-Chin text for the study of Chinese literature”, thus predating what we currently call China. The Zhuangzi is named for and attributed to Zhuang Zhou — “Master Zhuang” (Chinese:”Zhuangzi”) — born around 369 BCE in Song state, near the borders of modern Henan and Shandong provinces of modern China. He advocated a mode of understanding that is not committed to a fixed system, but is fluid and flexible, and that maintains a provisional, pragmatic attitude towards the application of categories and evaluations to existence and objects. He died around 286 BCE. A coruscating exposition of a prescient hermetic philosophy, the Zhuangzi, examines existence through the experience of an object, describing object-ness through metaphorical and metaphysical states.

The Zhuangzi posits that the metaphysical existence of objects and their intrinsic form is both a product of the human interpretation of an object’s nature, and of the various relationships that are possible between an object’s actual material state and of its essence in creating space for human spirituality. While the image of an object (art) establishes a human-centric method for the contemplation of the connections between physical states, through both time and space, art also creates multiple possible readings and meanings for existence. In art relationships between people co-exist equally with the relations with the space of existence, defining the entire process (time and space) of human and object existence. Contemporary civilization has discovered interpretations that offer a harmonious relationship between the direct vision and the space of art — through mutual connections in a common space, works of art can present similar patterns of communication.